


Realignment

by graeskies



Category: She-Ra - All Media Types, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-01 05:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16759306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graeskies/pseuds/graeskies
Summary: Catra and Adora face a messy but necessary break up. Catra chooses to make it way harder than necessary (for both herself and everyone around her). Scorpia and Entrapta are there to pick up the pieces.Includes: lots of platonic cuddling, excessive quantities of ice cream, Scorpia being the best friend she could possibly be, and Entrapta carefully walking the cheerful line of legality.Guaranteed: a happy ending with lots of lesbianism





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I love Scorpia with all my heart and it's really important to me that Catra learns to appreciate her.

It was going to be a bad breakup.

It was going to be a massively horrible, earth-shattering, world-changing, fridge-depleting, apocalyptic kind of breakup. Scorpia knew this because she knew Catra, and Catra wasn’t going down without a fight. To be fair, she only knew that there was going to be a breakup because Entrapta had warned her. Entrapta knew those kinds of things.

Scorpia was feeding her hermit crabs when Catra stormed through the back door of Scorpia’s house and dropped herself into a chair at the kitchen table. Scorpia went to the freezer to pull out the pints of ice cream she had bought to prepare for this day. She scooped a bowl for Catra and a bowl for herself, and placed them on the table with a lactose pill for Catra.

Catra dug into her ice cream with single-minded determination while Scorpia ate more slowly, waiting for Catra to start talking. It was unusual for Catra to not begin talking the moment she had an audience, and it was a sign of how upset she was. Scorpia desperately wanted to give her friend a hug but she knew that it would likely be unwelcome at the moment. She took a moment to text Entrapta to let her know that the breakup had happened, and then waited patiently for Catra to be ready to talk.

Catra finished eating, pushed her bowl to the center of the table, and put her head down on her crossed arms. “She’s trying to leave me.” Mumbled, barely perceivable.

“Adora is?”

“Yes. She tried to break up with me today. But I won’t let her.”

“You… you won’t let her?” Scorpia would never pretend to understand the mechanisms of Catra and Adora’s relationship, but she was pretty sure there had to be some consensus to remain a couple.

“No! She promised me that she would never leave me! I won’t let her break her promise.” Catra insisted.

“Did she say why she wanted to break up with you?”

“I mean! She got a full ride scholarship! So she’s going to _college_ and she doesn’t think she can handle a long-distance relationship so we have to break up! Which is _ridiculous;_ I can’t believe she can be so _stupid_!”

“So it’s not that she doesn’t love you anymore, right?” Scorpia felt like it was wrong to use the word _love_ when Adora was the one who had left Catra here in pieces on Scorpia’s kitchen table, shaking and sputtering and squinting away tears. Scorpia got up to get a blanket, wrapping it gently around Catra’s slim shoulders.

“No, of course not!” Catra growled in pure bitterness. “ _Of course_ she still loves me, but she’s leaving me anyways!” The pair were silent for a moment, and Scorpia got up to put the ice cream bowls away before returning to the table.

“What are you going to do?”

“I am going to take a nap.” Catra declared, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes and stalking off. Scorpia noted that her friend was heading towards Scorpia’s room instead of the guest room, and she settled down on the couch to wait for Entrapta.

When Entrapta showed up, she pranced through the door with a grin on her face.

“Mission accomplished!” she said. “I’ve removed all of the Adora-bilia from Catra’s locker, backpack, and home!”

“Adora-bilia?” Scorpia asked.

“Adora memorabilia! And I’ve replaced it with my favorite selfies of us!! And tiny cupcakes!! It’ll be like they were never together!!”

“I think she might notice the lack of Adora love notes in her binder cover, but it’s a good idea regardless. A clean slate will help.”

“Yes, I also stole her phone and deleted all their texts, emails, mentions of Adora on social media, and also all pictures of her now ex-girlfriend!”

“That’s…” Scorpia sighed. “That might have been going a little far. Catra said she wasn’t going to let Adora break up with her.”

“That’s not possible. If Adora says they’re not dating, they’re not dating.” Entrapta pointed out.

“I know.”

“So we’ll just have to see what happens!” Entrapta pulled out her voice log and began recounting the hour’s happenings, so Scorpia snagged her sketchbook from the coffee table and tuned her friend out. 

\--

Hours later, Catra crept out from the blanket nest she had made in Scorpia’s room and joined her two best friends on the couch. They ate spaghetti while they watched WALL-E; Entrapta sprawled across multiple cushions with her head in Scorpia’s lap while Catra curled carefully against Scorpia’s side. Scorpia _loved_ her two best friends.

Catra cried throughout most of the movie, and Scorpia carefully braided her mane into soft pleats, trying to help keep her from overheating in her explosive grief. After WALL-E, they opened the ice cream again, and started on the Toy Story trilogy. Entrapta was happy to continue picking movies while Catra sobbed into Scorpia’s arms. It didn’t take her long to wear herself out again and fall asleep.

Scorpia texted her parents to let them know they were having a sleepover, wrangled the remote away from Entrapta, and settled further into the cushions to sleep. Once Entrapta’s breathing slowed and Catra snuggled a little closer, Scorpia allowed herself to fall asleep herself.

\--

Luckily, the next day was a Saturday. Adora would be at soccer practice, there would be no drill team practice, and Robotics Club didn’t have another competition until the following weekend. It was such perfect timing that Scorpia briefly wondered if Adora had planned it that way, to make it easier for Catra. She tended to have the kind of foresight that said it was plausible.

Early in the morning, Scorpia received a text from Bow asking to meet up. She agreed, told Entrapta to keep track of Catra, and headed out.

As the manager of the soccer team, Bow definitely should have been at practice, which told Scorpia that this meeting was very important. They met in the local park and greeted each other with an enthusiastic hug. Scorpia first met Bow when she tried out for the soccer team. Although she was rejected in a way that left a sour taste in her mouth, she remained good friends with Bow, who had apologized for the coach’s treatment of her.

“Bow!” Scorpia greeted happily. “How are you? How is the team?”

“Great! We’re great; I’m great! Adora is really taking us far this season!”

“That’s awesome! She seems like a really strong player!”

“Yeah… about Adora…” Bow hedged, rocking back on his heels.

“Yes. What about Adora?” Scorpia crossed her arms, standing straight to her full height.

“She’s pretty heartbroken, man.” Bow said, meeting her eyes. “She was really convinced that Catra would stay with her.”

“Wait, what?” Scorpia suddenly felt that she was not qualified for this conversation.

“Adora. She said that she and Catra had promised that they’d stick together forever, and now suddenly Catra is backing out?” Bow’s voice was gentle as he noticed Scorpia’s confusion. “What did Catra tell _you_?”

“She just told me that Adora is leaving her. And then she cried for like, nine hours.”  
“Jeez,” Bow whispered. “I am so confused.”

Scorpia sighed, thinking about what she knew. “I am going to go home. And I am going to comfort my best friend. And when she’s ready, I’ll ask her what the hell is going on. And then I’ll text you, ‘kay?” Bow nodded in agreement.

“‘Kay. I’ll see you around, Scorpia. Drive safe.” And the two waved before parting ways again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the time since I wrote the first chapter, I have completely restructured the plot because I'm not emotionally stable enough to write a slow burn right now LMAO but the pacing is going to be a lot better now. Gonna get to the Scorpia/Catra stuff a lot sooner :D

When Scorpia returned, Catra was gnawing on the edge of a piece of toast while Entrapta asked her as many personal questions as she could think of. Scorpia settled in for the show.

“So how long did you guys date for?”

“We’ve been dating for almost four years now.”

“And how did you get together?”

“I asked her out!”

“How long did you like her for before you asked her out?”

“I dunno, like a couple years.”

“Why did it take you so long to ask?”

“I didn’t think she would say yes.”

“A manifestation of your crippling self-doubt, yes. And how did you meet to begin with?”

“God, you know all of this already, Entrapta! We grew up in the same orphanage.”

Entrapta blinked. “You _what_?”

“Did you…? Did you not know that?”

“No!”

“Yeah, we grew up in the same orphanage. We’ve known each other forever.”

“Adora is adopted?”

“Are you kidding me right now? She’s only been with the Moonstone family for like four years.”

“Ah. So you waited until Adora moved out of the orphanage to live with her new family to ask her out. Do you think you waited so that you would have the space to heal in case she rejected you, or because you were worried that she would grow apart from you as she entered this new chapter in her life, and you wanted to tether her to you?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that??” Catra ripped another bite out of her toast and chewed furiously. “I just asked her out because I liked her! It had nothing to do with her getting adopted!”

“What’s the timeline with that? Did you ask her out before or after she moved out?”

“Before she moved out, but after she got adopted.”

“So you were worried that she would abandon you once she got used to her new family. Interesting.”

“Entrapta, get the hell out of my head!” Catra got up to storm away, but Scorpia caught her by the waist and guided her towards the couch.

“It’s okay hon, what movie do you want to watch?” Scorpia asked, piling blankets around Catra.

“I wanna watch the Lion King. Yesterday was too much Pixar.”

Scorpia just hummed in reply, settling down for another long day. Scorpia had known that Catra and Adora knew each other before high school, but she hadn’t known that Adora was adopted. She wondered how much Adora’s athletic ability factored into her adoption. Coach Angella had, after all, made Adora a part of the team without audition. Once it was revealed that Adora had been adopted by Coach Angella just weeks prior, it made the whole situation less legitimate, in Scorpia’s mind.

-

“I wanna play Monopoly.” Catra stated, kicking layers of blankets off of her legs.

Scorpia was terrible at Monopoly. “Okay! I want the battle ship piece!”

“I want the wheelbarrow. Entrapta, play with us.”

Entrapta was incredible at Monopoly. “Do I have to?” she whined.

“Yes! We need you!” Catra snapped. Scorpia put a soothing hand on her back and Catra shrugged it off.

Entrapta moved whatever project she was working on to one end of the table so she could pull out the Monopoly board and the three friends sat down to play. As they played, Scorpia steadily lost all her property, Entrapta attached a motor to her handmade Monopoly piece, and Catra’s incessant griping shifted from a grief-infused narrative to an anger-driven rant.

“Stupid Adora, always acting like she’s giving me a _choice_. She’s no better than me!”

“What choice did Adora fail to give you?” Entrapta asked, stacking hotels onto her property.

“She suggested I _leave_ Hordeton. As if that’s even an option!” Catra hissed.

“Wait, she asked you to come with her to Brighton?” Entrapta asked.

Catra was quiet for a moment. “Maybe.”

“Yesterday, you said that she was moving to Brighton and leaving you behind, as if she didn’t give you the option.” Scorpia pointed out.

“Because that’s what I’m saying! She _didn’t_ give me a choice, she’s just acting like it so she can take the high road and move on with her perfect life as if I was never even a part of it!”

“But she asked you to come with her?” Entrapta said.

“Yes! Yes, okay? She asked me to come with her. But she knows that I don’t want to leave the only home I’ve ever known, so she asked me to leave with her _knowing_ that’d I’d say no so that she’d have an excuse to break up with me! She doesn’t want me anymore and it’s _my_ fault because I’ve been a _terrible_ girlfriend since the moment we started dating!”

“That still sounds like a choice to me. Maybe you made your choice before she even asked, but it’s still _your_ choice.” Entrapta said.

“Nobody asked for your fucking opinion!” Catra snapped, shoving her chair back and storming out of the room, grabbing another pint of ice cream before she left.

“She didn’t bring her lactaid pills.” Scorpia noted, frowning.

“Yeah, nor her self-awareness.” Entrapta snorted, laughing to herself.

\--

Bow and Scorpia met at the park again the next morning, this time by Scorpia’s request.

“Scorpia! I brought you some hot chocolate! Have you made any progress?” Bow said in greeting, handing over a warm paper cup. Scorpia smiled.

“Bow, you are a bright ray of sunshine in my life. And yes, I think I have. Catra, as always, confuses me, but she explained a little bit more over Monopoly yesterday afternoon.”

“Ooh, do tell, you giant, beautiful woman!” Bow said, sitting down on a park bench. Scorpia happily joined him.

“So apparently, Adora is moving away to college, and she asked Catra to join her. Did you know that?”

“Yeah, we’ve known that for a while. Adora got a full-ride athletic scholarship to Brighton University. It took her a while to work up the courage to ask Catra to come with her, but when she did, Catra said no. She was shocked, to say the least.” Bow took a sip out of his own paper cup. “Did… did Catra say why she didn’t want to come?”

“She didn’t, actually. Catra was just very sure that Adora knew that she wouldn’t want to leave Hordeton. _Very_ adamant about that, really. She thinks that Adora was plotting to get rid of her.” Scorpia said.

“ _What_? That’s insane! Adora loves Catra!”

“Okay, but listen. Entrapta warned me that Adora and Catra were going to break up like three weeks ago.”

“How could she have known that?”

“I don’t know! Entrapta has a strange and mysterious mind that I will never understand, but she’s literally _always right_ , okay? And she was right about this and I don’t know how she could have known that almost a month ago.”

“Unless there’s another reason that they’re breaking up? Has Catra expressed any frustrations with Adora recently?” Bow asked.

“Honestly, no. Normally she complains about Adora all the time but for the past month or so she’s actually been pretty quiet.” Scorpia admitted.

“That’s really interesting honestly. I assumed it was just stress, but Adora has been pretty quiet ever since she got her scholarship letter from Brighton University. That was almost two months ago.”

“So one way or another, we think the breakup is moderately mutual and it’s a long time coming? But they’re both so upset by it!”

“Catra and Adora have been together for a long long time. No matter how mutual a breakup is, it’s going to hurt to leave in the end. Their entire routines and lives are intertwined. Giving up the remnants of what they had is going to take time.” Bow explained, looking down at his hands. “I think they need to talk about it, though.”

“I think Catra would punch me if I said that to her face, but you’re right. Not this weekend though. Catra needs more time.”

“So does Adora. We’ll figure it out as we go. But enough about those two, how is your family doing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you to everyone who commented on the first chapter!! It's really encouraging <3

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure I have a handle on these characters yet, but I'm trying! Feel free to leave questions or comments as I work on the next section :D


End file.
